Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 1, 4, 10, 13, 16, and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over HOSSEINI US 20210212075 in view of Kim US 20190246426.
Regarding claims 1, 10, and 16, HOSSEINI teaches a method comprising: at a user equipment (UE):
determining one or more radio access capabilities related to a supported number of component carriers (CCs) / carriers for physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) monitoring by the UE, wherein the one or more radio access capabilities include multiple span configurations and a maximum number of downlink CCs for PDCCH monitoring for each span configuration of the multiple span configurations (fig. 4, In this case, let N.sub.cells,DL.sup.u,x,y,n represent the number of the carriers that satisfy a span configuration (x, y) with n spans per slot and configured with SCS=u, PDCCH, [0076]);
generating a message that includes the one or more radio access capabilities of the UE, wherein the message includes multiple entries, each entry corresponding to one of the multiple span configurations supported by the UE for PDCCH monitoring and indicating a maximum number of downlink CCs for PDCCH monitoring (A UE may report PDCCH monitoring capabilities for a set of cases, [0051]);
a parameter explicitly identifying a maximum number of downlink CC’s per span configuration for PDCCH monitoring (As shown by reference number 420, the UE 120 may determine that a number of carriers associated with per-span BD or CCE monitoring exceeds a threshold, In some aspects, the threshold may be referred to herein as N.sub.cells.sup.cap, [0067]);
and transmitting the message to the network (A UE may report PDCCH monitoring capabilities for a set of cases, [0051]).
HOSSEINI is silent on receiving a request from a network for radio access capabilities of the UE.
Kim teaches receiving a request from a network for radio access capabilities of the UE ([0071]).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the system of HOSSEINI by receiving a request from a network for radio access capabilities of the UE, as shown by Kim. This modification would benefit the system by enabling the network to immediately obtain the radio access capabilities of a UE that just entered the cell.
Regarding claims 4, 13, and 19, the UE limits the one or more each span configurations configuration included in the message based on a predetermined number of span patterns (HOSSEINI: Let M.sub.PDCCH.sup.span,u,x,y represent the limit on the number of BDs summed over the number of spans in a given carrier under the (x, y) span configuration for a carrier with SCS=u. M.sub.PDCCH.sup.total,u,x,y,n may provide the total number of BDs across the carriers with SCS=u, an (x, y) span configuration, and n spans per slot, 0076]).
Claim(s) 6, 15, 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of HOSSEINI and Kim as applied to claims 1, 10 above, and further in view of Takahashi US 20230049505.
The combination is silent on the message includes one or more subcarrier spacing (SCS) configurations, each of the SCS configurations associated with one or more span patterns.
Takahashi teaches the UE transmitting a message includes one or more subcarrier spacing (SCS) configurations, each of the SCS configurations associated with one or more span patterns ([0055]).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the system of the combination by the UE transmitting a message includes one or more subcarrier spacing (SCS) configurations, each of the SCS configurations associated with one or more span patterns, as shown by Takahashi. This modification would benefit the system by the UE informing the network if its capabilities.
Claim(s) 7, 21, 24 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of HOSSEINI and Kim as applied to claims 1, 10, 16 above, and further in view of Yang US 20120320838.
The combination is silent on the message includes a maximum number of CCs for PDCCH monitoring in accordance with only a first operating criteria.
Yang teaches the UE is aware of the maximum number of CCs for PDCCH monitoring in accordance with only a first operating criteria ([0180]).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the system of the combination by the message includes a maximum number of CCs for PDCCH monitoring in accordance with only a first operating criteria, as suggested by Yang. This modification would benefit the system by the UE informing the network if its capabilities.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5, 8, 9, 14, 22, 23, 25, and 26 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 1/12/26 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant contends the references from the prior office action do not disclose a parameter explicitly identifying a maximum number of downlink CC’s per span configuration for PDCCH monitoring. This is incorrect, as shown above, see HOSSEINI [0067].
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RONALD B ABELSON whose telephone number is (571)272-3165. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:00-4:30.
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/RONALD B ABELSON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2476